No Verdict in Cosby Trial After Deliberations

The jury did not reach a verdict in the Bill Cosby sex assault retrial during day one of deliberations.

(Published Wednesday, April 25, 2018)

Jurors at Bill Cosby's sexual assault retrial have finished their first day of deliberations without reaching a verdict.

The jury outside Philadelphia worked more than 10 hours before calling it a night late Wednesday. Judge Steven O'Neill told them, "Your mind is done. You're exhausted.''

Cosby is charged with drugging and molesting a woman at his home in 2004. He says it was consensual.

Before going back to their hotel, the panel of seven men and five women had Cosby's old deposition testimony read back to them.

The 80-year-old comedian gave a deposition more than a decade ago as part of chief accuser Andrea Constand's civil suit against him. He testified that he gave quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with back in the 1970s. He also testified about his encounter with Constand.

Deliberations got underway after a marathon day of closing arguments Tuesday that portrayed the comedian both as a calculating predator who is finally being brought to justice and the victim of a multimillion-dollar frame-up by a "pathological liar."

The jury returned to the courtroom less than two hours into its deliberations to ask for the legal definition of consent.

Judge Steve O'Neill said he wasn't able to answer it, telling jurors they've already been given the definitions of the charges they are considering.

Cosby gave a quick fist pump and sashayed toward well-wishers chanting, "We love Bill!" as he arrived at the courthouse on a rainy Wednesday morning.

The two-week trial pitted Cosby, the former TV star once revered as "America's Dad," against Constand, a former Temple University sports administrator who testified that he knocked her out with three pills he called "your friends" and molested her at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in January 2004.

Jury Deliberating in Retrial of Bill Cosby, 'America's Dad'

A jury is deliberating in Bill Cosby's retrial on three counts of aggravated indecent assault. Here's how the case evolved.

(Published Wednesday, April 25, 2018)

"The time for the defendant to escape justice is over. It's finally time for the defendant to dine on the banquet of his own consequences," prosecutor Stewart Ryan told the jury.

Cosby's lawyers argued that the charges were based on "flimsy, silly, ridiculous evidence."

The jury heard testimony from five other women who said that Cosby drugged and violated them, too. Before excusing the jurors to deliberate, Judge Steven O'Neill told them they could consider the women's testimony as possible evidence that Cosby had a pattern of predatory behavior, but he forbade them from using it to find that the comedian is "a person of bad character."

Cosby's more streamlined first trial ended in a hung jury last year after six days of deliberations. Only one additional accuser testified that time. Nor were jurors told the amount of Cosby's 2006 civil settlement with Constand: nearly $3.4 million, which defense lawyer Tom Mesereau on Tuesday called "one of the biggest highway robberies of all time."

Cosby's lawyers contend the encounter with Constand was consensual, and say she falsely accused Cosby so she could sue him and extract a big settlement. They called to the stand a woman who said Constand spoke of framing a prominent person — testimony that was blocked at last year's trial.

"I have never seen or heard of a retrial that was as different as this was from the first trial," said lawyer Dennis McAndrews, who has been following the retrial and is not associated with either side. "The prosecution now had multiple victims and the defense had the issue of money, which were powerful weapons for both sides."

Cosby faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault, each carrying up to 10 years in prison. His wife of 54 years, Camille, looked on from the gallery as his lawyers pleaded with the jury to clear him, the first time she has attended the trial. She also sat in for the defense's closing argument at his first trial.

The defense went after Constand, attacking her credibility and character.

"You're dealing with a pathological liar, members of the jury," said Mesereau, who won an acquittal in Michael Jackson's 2005 child molestation case. "You are."

The defense highlighted more than a dozen inconsistencies in what Constand has said over the years and painstakingly reviewed phone and travel records, saying they prove the alleged assault couldn't have happened when she says it did. They argued that he was charged after the 12-year statute of limitations for prosecuting him had run out.

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.